InFlight Entertainment
by pamplemoussekitty
Summary: One-shots and stories in the Leviathan universe. Probably Alek/Deryn :
1. don't skip breakfast

**Hey everyone…so, I thought I would have a go at a one-shot series for the awesome Leviathan, Behemoth and soon-to-be Goliath books. Probably won't update a lot, but I like this series, so I wanted to write something for it **** Here's Chapter One. It was inspired by breakfast this morning, if you didn't realise :D **

**Don't Skip Breakfast**

"What is this stuff?"

Deryn grimaced, staring at the brown, sludge-like bowl of cereal in front of her.

Alek, in the chair next to her, shrugged as he reached for the packet.

"All Bran," he read off the back. "Ninety-nine percent bran fibre." He shuddered. "Why are we eating this again?"

Deryn tasted the substance gingerly, making a face as she chewed.

"Ninety-nine percent clart, that's for sure," she said through a mouthful of the sludge.

"This clart is breakfast, you ninnies," Newkirk, on Alek's other side, interrupted. He was crunching enthusiastically, almost at the bottom of his bowl. "Eat up!"

Bovril, on Deryn's shoulder, chirruped inquisitively at the food.

"No, beastie," said Deryn, stuffing another spoonful into her mouth and forcing herself to swallow. She didn't particularly want to collapse of hunger midway through her watch, even if the stuff was vile.

"Dr. Barlow'll feed you. You can't eat this muck."

Bovril whined. "Eat…hungry." It leapt onto Alek's shoulder, who was staring at his cereal as if it was a bowl of centipedes.

"You don't want this, Bovril" he told the loris, scratching it on the head. "It's foul." He pushed his bowl away. "I think I'll survive fine without breakfast."

Newkirk, wolfing down his second bowl, replied "It's not so bad if you hold your breath while you chew. Here, beastie, try some." Bovril chirped happily and clambered onto Alek's head to accept the spoonful of cereal Newkirk offered it.

Alek rolled his eyes, head in hands.

"I remember in Austria we had real food for breakfast, none of this horse mash. Sausages, and bacon, and eggs…as much toast as you could eat, a hundred kinds of bread…

Deryn and Newkirk looked at each other.

"Pastries, fruit, cheese- from our own farms…"

Deryn swallowed the last of her milk and winked.

"And animals were never allowed at the table," Alek waffled on, "Not even lorises-hey!"

As one Deryn and Newkirk leapt up and bolted for the mess-hall door, laughing like loons. An exasperated Alek was left alone at the table.

"Darwinists," he muttered to Bovril, shaking his head. "All barking mad, I tell you." Bovril, nose-down in Alek's untouched cereal, looked up, milk dripping from his whiskers. "Barking."

An hour later Deryn was walking Tazza on the spine, enjoying the morning sunshine, when she heard a clatter and a muffled thump from the starboard engine pod, followed shortly by cries of alarm.

She grinned to herself, wondering if she should go down and explain.

That, Alek, is what you get for skipping breakfast.

**Read and review! Criticism (particularly grammar) is welcome. **


	2. lightbulb

**Ahoy, shipmates! Here's Chapter Two. It's a bit short, and doesn't have Deryn in it, which is a bit of a downer. But hopefully Chapter 3 will be up soon. **** Thanks for the reviews, by the way, and the compliments! I will try and keep up with updates **** R & R! **

**Lightbulb…**

Dr Barlow sat in her cabin aboard the Leviathan, puzzling over her pages of neatly-written notes. The sheaf of paper, growing steadily more difficult to read as the wavering light of the wormlamp above dimmed, was a record of Barlow's newest fabrication.

Tazza, lying on the rug beside her chair, whined softly, waiting for his walk.

The lady boffin scratched his head absentmindedly as she added a line to the upmost sheet.

_Dylan has named it Bovril_, she scripted carefully_. I wonder if this may be unwise- the boy is becoming most attached to the creature. _

_The anomalies in the loris' bonding behaviour persist- it has formed an equal degree of attachment to both Alek and Dylan._

She dipped the pen into her inkwell and continued. _Investigate further. _

The wriggling green glow of the wormlamp was almost out, and the lady boffin got up to take it down from its hook on the ceiling. As she fed the worms a spoonful of dried flies from the jar on a nearby shelf, she pondered the problem with growing frustration.

The two boys were close, yes, but not in the way the loris required to bond with a pair.

Perhaps the creature's ability to distinguish human genders was impaired.

That would explain its behaviour suggesting that Alek and Dylan were its parental figures- it had mistaken one or the other for a woman.

But Barlow had kept the eggs' temperature stable- at least most of the time- and the majority of the creature's essential structure, including its brain and facial recognition, would have already developed before the crash in the mountains and its assuming chaos.

Barlow furrowed her brow as she shifted the pieces around in her mind, turning them over, fitting edges and corners together to form the vague edge of an idea.

With an inaudible "ping!" the wormlamp's shimmering green light snapped back to its full shine, illuminating the cabin as the glowworms suddenly regained their energy.

Dr. Barlow's bowler hat slipped from her hand to the floor.

She didn't notice.

Her loris, which had been curled up in the corner of her desk, sat up. "_Mr_ Sharp," it said, and began to giggle.


End file.
